Arrow Bowen Pipeline Project

Arrow Bowen Pipeline Pty Ltd, the proponent for this project, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Arrow Energy Pty Ltd (Arrow Energy). Arrow Energy is owned by a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell Plc and PetroChina Company Limited.

The project comprises the construction and operation of a 580km high pressure gas pipeline, which would convey coal seam gas (CSG) from Arrow Energy‘s gas fields in the Bowen Basin to a liquefied natural gas plant on Curtis Island near Gladstone. The proposed pipeline would commence in the southern part of the Whitsunday Regional Council local government area (LGA), traverse the Isaac and Rockhampton Regional Council’s LGAs and terminate in the Gladstone Regional Council LGA. The pipeline would consist of a mainline, three laterals and associated above-ground infrastructure, i.e. mainline valves, scraper stations, cathodic protection systems and a gas gathering hub at the end of the pipeline. The buried pipeline route would cross private land, roads, railway lines, watercourses and wetlands.

Associated activities would include:

five temporary workers accommodation camps (only two would be operational at any one time)

sewerage treatment plants

potentially water treatment plants for potable water

diesel generators

fuel and chemical storage areas

laydown areas for equipment and line pipe

access roads.

The pipeline would be laid in a trench with a minimum depth of cover of 750mm. At watercourse crossings, the minimum depth of cover would be 1200mm or deeper. The pipeline would have a nominal diameter of 1.07m for the mainline and 0.41m or 0.51m for the lateral pipelines. The project would have a minimum technical design life of 40 years; however, with ongoing maintenance the operational life is expected to be more than that.

The proponent initiated the EIS process by submitting an application for a voluntary EIS to EHP on 16 February 2011. On 30 January 2013 EHP decided that the EIS could proceed under section 56A of the Environmental Protection Act 1994. On 22 March 2013 EHP issued an EIS assessment report to the proponent, concluding the EIS process.

In conducting its assessment, EHP considered the submitted EIS, all submissions and the standard criteria. The EIS provided information to quantify the location, width and depth of disturbance of the project, the values of the site and the potential impacts to those values and set out a range of mitigation and management measures (including environmental protection commitments). Management practices were provided or committed to that indicated the environmental outcome objectives and specific management actions that would be implemented during the project. Despite the TOR not being fully addressed, the project was assessed as being suitable to proceed, provided that the recommendations in the assessment report are fully implemented.

While the EIS process is now finalised, Arrow Energy will need to obtain some final approvals from EHP and other government agencies, including federal approval, before construction can commence.

Any Environmental Authority that may be granted for the project will set strict environmental conditions for the construction and operation of the pipeline. Those conditions will ensure that commitments made in the EIS are fully implemented.

Further information

Copies of publicly available documents can be obtained by accessing the links below: